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Leading Democrats are now on the record backing revolutionary change in the American healthcare system that would remove both the private insurance industry and financial barriers to accessing care—finally enshrining healthcare as a right.

Over the past year, the Democratic Party has undergone a monumental shift left on the issue of healthcare. Today, Bernie Sanders introduced his Medicare for All bill with the support of 15 co-sponsors in the Senate—a third of the Democratic caucus. In 2013, the last time Sanders introduced such a bill, it had just one sponsor: himself.

A new political consensus is forming around an idea that as recently as last year seemed anathema to mainstream Democratic officials. Democrats at all levels of power now face the choice of joining the chorus demanding universal, decommodified healthcare, or being left behind.

Single payer’s rapid growth in institutional support is a testament to the dedicated work of single-payer advocates across the country who’ve organized in the face of a GOP-led government that would rather strip health insurance from millions of Americans.

Sanders has used his newfound leadership position in the Democratic Party to coalesce party leaders and up-and-comers in the Senate around an issue that was a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign—one that Hillary Clinton infamously said would “never, ever come to pass.”

In addition to longtime vocal single payer supporters such as Jeff Merkley and Brian Schatz, the bill’s sponsors also include Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kristen Gillibrand, Al Franken and Elizabeth Warren—all figures with growing popularity in the party who are frequently floated as potential 2020 presidential contenders.

The bill is also sponsored by Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin who represents a state that went for Bernie Sanders in the primary but flipped red in the general to go narrowly for Donald Trump. Even former Montana Sen. Max Baucus who is credited with cratering the single-payer push during Obamacare negotiations in 2010 now says of single payer, “It’s going to happen.”

So how did the tide turn in support of single-payer? Sanders didn’t hit some wonkish policy sweet spot where the numbers finally added up and the technocrats gave their seal of approval. Rather, over the course of Sanders’ presidential run and throughout the recent GOP-led efforts to overturn Obamacare, public support for a Medicare for All system didn’t just grow—it translated into real political pressure.

Sanders championed single payer every chance he got throughout the primary—on TV appearances and at his mass rallies. This past spring and summer, congressional town halls were jam-packed with constituents demanding a health insurance system that would provide them with the care and the drugs they need to survive without driving them into bankruptcy.

Groups such as National Nurses United, Physicians for a National Health Program, Healthcare Now!, Our Revolution, Justice Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America energized their membership to knock doors, petition representatives and build public support behind single-payer.

Meanwhile, advocates for single payer have followed Sanders’ lead in making the moral case for a universal healthcare system in the United States. Rather than focusing on the need to bring down healthcare costs to cut the deficit, supporters have rejected the vocabulary of austerity and instead called upon the need for a humane and just system that doesn’t discriminate based on economic stature.

The approach was on full display during a MSNBC-hosted town hall event with Sanders in McDowell County, W.Va., in March. McDowell, a former mining community, is one of the poorest areas in the state and was won by Donald Trump in 2016 with 75 percent of the vote.

Speaking to a crowd of McDowell residents and Phil, a former coal miner who voted for Trump, Sanders said:

“What I am going to tell you is not utopian, it’s not crazy, it is real. For a start, healthcare must be a right of all people, workers and retirees.

“Let me pose this question to Phil and to other people. We are the only major country on Earth, the only one that doesn’t guarantee healthcare to all people as a right. What do you think? Do you think we should join other countries and guarantee healthcare as a right of all people?”

Phil replied: “Yeah. I think every American citizen should have healthcare.”

It turns out that Phil is not alone. This strategy of making the moral case for universal healthcare has paid off. Polls show Americans increasingly support a Medicare for All system. A recent Kaiser poll put public backing at 57 percent. And in an April Economist/YouGov poll, 60 percent said they want to “expand Medicare to provide health insurance to every American.”

As the widespread support for Sanders’ bill shows, this message is beginning to make its way into the halls of power in the Democratic Party. Leading Democrats are now on the record backing revolutionary change in the American healthcare system that would remove both the private insurance industry and financial barriers to accessing care—finally enshrining healthcare as a right.

But this does not mean that Medicare for All won’t face stark opposition from forces inside the Democratic establishment. It’s notable that members of party leadership—Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer—have all refused to publicly back Sanders’ bill, as has Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez.

These and other Democrats may be wary of signing onto a program that Republicans could for once accurately attack as socialized health insurance.

Yet in opposing Medicare for All, these Democrats will be siding with the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street investors that benefit from the current system—a system which leaves tens of millions of Americans without insurance while filling corporate coffers with billions in profits.

Sanders, writing in a New York Timesop-ed today, said that these opponents of single payer are “on the wrong side of history.”

By building a consensus around Medicare for All, Sanders and other advocates have chosen a side in a battle that affects much more than just healthcare.

On issue after issue, from raising the minimum wage and providing paid family leave to challenging mass incarceration and ending discriminatory housing practices, this fight against corporate interests and the members of Congress who represent those interests will be central to achieving progressive political goals.

It’s heartening to see that a third of the Democrats in the Senate have now signed onto this fight by backing Sanders’ bill. It’s now up to the rest of the Democratic establishment to show which side they are on.

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Miles Kampf-Lassin, a graduate of New York University's Gallatin School in Deliberative Democracy and Globalization, is a Web Editor at In These Times. He is a Chicago based writer.
miles@inthesetimes.com
@MilesKLassin

And what will be each individual's Medicare Tax Rate to pay for this entitlement? Come clean Bernie, just come out and state that what you earn is not yours to spend, the State will decide what you can spend and on what you can purchase. Just like the stores in the old Soviet Union. You can purchase whatever is there. Alas there was nothing of the shelves. A old style Stalinist Communist, is that you Bernie?

Posted by E J Kraus on 2018-04-21 15:42:26

No, I am quite knowledgable about this issue, and of the danger of trusting government too much to run our lives.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-24 12:14:07

I see you are ignorant. It is your right.

Posted by pamelia on 2017-09-24 09:52:39

Listen, the government gives food to those who NEED it. We don't have food stamps for the wealthy.

We simply need to do the same for health care: have government pay for it for the poor. But not waste one cent on health care for those who can afford it.

Wait, we already do that: we have Medicaid. Problem solved.

We do have a massive debt problem here; wasting it on healthcare for the rich is a really terrible idea. And that is just one of the reasons "single payer" is a very bad idea.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-24 09:15:02

No, the intent of government healthcare is government power. There are plenty of ways to improve healthcare that involve increasing payers, not increasing them.

". Look at the other nations that have improved the lives of their citizens"

Like the ones on Europe where single payer means killing handicapped people. "Death panels" are what happens with single payer, regardless of what the GOP thinks.

You must think it is OK for the goverment to kill people as part of "health care". I suggest you look into the euthenasia situation in Europe.

I will close with this remark: health care is far too important for the government to seize control of it.

Good day, good day!

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-24 08:28:14

that is and has always been the intent of government health care, sir. To improve the lives of the citizens of this country rather than the insurance industry that has gone comepletely off the rails. Look at the other nations that have improved the lives of their citizens, that is exactly what this was intended to do and can still. "Death panels" are what the GOP seems to think should happen, if you read adn understand any of the language they have used in their proposals. I think you have much incorrect information and are propelling the "fake news" industry here in your outrageous claims esp about western Europe. Good Day to you, I said GOOD DAY. :)

Posted by pamelia on 2017-09-24 07:59:34

Also, claiming that when the government seizes control of it that it is really "for the people" is how bootlicking fascists advance the super state. Seriously, you need to re-think your priorities.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-24 07:13:18

The ill intent is that it is clear that those who want "single payer" don't care about healthcare, but are trying by any means to increase the power of government over our lives.

Single payer is a fascist wet dream: the government seizing control of 17% of the economy. The only ones who benefit when the government takes over (takes away) our health care is the government. The rest of us would suffer under rationing and death panels. I have a friend in Canada with a handicapped child. She is denied care for her child in the Canadian fascistic healthcare monopoly. Since she lives near the border, she comes to the US. It's worse in Western Europe, where under single payer, executioners called "doctors" like to kill handicapped people under orders from the govenrment

Why not work to improve health care, instead of making "Job One" the government seizing control it it.?

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-24 07:12:01

Ill intent? WHY is it wrong to have health care for the American people, I seriously am asking this. Many other nations have seemed to figure it out, why can this country not do so also? If our citizens have health care would this not make us greater, better equipped to function and reach higher economically, intellectually and in many other ways? Yes, Obama wanted single payer, research will bear that out as to why and how it was dropped. We can and should have health care for each citizen in this country. The INSURANCE industry opposes it but not the medical professionals. They recognise why it would benefit this country as a whole.

Posted by pamelia on 2017-09-24 06:53:16

Richard Rahl...If you can follow a thread, I was answering Eric Sin who asked me for an example for why I thought the headline was truthful. No where did I state "complete government control of healhcare" in my response. Those are your words. I said they are losing money and elections. If you can put two and two together you might figure out what I meant.

Posted by Dot L on 2017-09-22 21:18:56

And i bet if we publicize it, Dems will lose seats next year.

It's a horrible idea.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 16:04:42

Obama gave us a left-wing, Democrat plan. Very destructive.

I give Bernie "Credit" for being an evil-minded left-fascist and sticking to his iron dream of government seizing complete control of all healthcare decisions.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 16:04:16

Obama wanted single payer: that was proof of his ill intent. But thankfully a majority oppose it.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 16:03:01

Or there would be a massive grassroots outrage as there has been for EVERY SINGLE proposal to have the government steal our healthcare decisions from us. No matter what you call it.

By all means, give this terrible idea more publicity. And we might get a result like 1994, when reaction to Hillary's similarly terrible idea caused huge GOP gains in Congress.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 16:00:38

Medicare is welfare for people of means and the wealthy. It needs to be reduced (no giving government money to those who can afford it) not expanded.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 15:58:37

Reworded to be more accurate:

"Only in America is the idea of government seizing control a political issue."

This makes the US smarter than these other countries for sure. Europe does indeed have a long historic problem of trusting the rulers too much.

It doesn't. Being "Liberal" means taking care of the rights and power of the rulers first, at the expense of our fellow citizens.

"It is also more patriotic to care about your fellow American, than it is to wave around guns and the flag."

Yes, we must do more than just express our 2nd Amendment rights and our love of our country: we must write our congressmen and vote to ensure Obamacare is repealed, for starters.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 15:56:59

" If they want to continue to bring in money they need to meet the need of their electorates and they're not doing it."

Yet AGAIN demanding the complete government control of healhcare doesn't meet the needs of the electorate, and in fact is very unpopular and is only beloved of extremists.

Posted by Richard Rahl on 2017-09-22 15:52:43

Good luck on that one. Crazy Bernie's own Lib-state of Vermont rejected it.

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-09-19 06:47:48

If Obama wanted a single payer why didn't he push for it? Democrats had the Presidency,the house and the senate and they still gave us a Republican, Heritage foundation healthcare system. Now you don't want Bernie to get credit for perseverance.

Posted by Capnden on 2017-09-18 11:01:25

Quote from the article: "Rather than focusing on the need to bring down healthcare costs to cut the deficit, supporters have rejected the vocabulary of austerity and instead called upon the need for a humane and just system that doesn’t discriminate based on economic stature."

I quibble with this wording because it could imply to some that single payer would add to the deficit and not bring down healthcare costs. No proposal I've seen is calling for deficit spending of it nor not including a reduction in healthcare costs as a main goal.

Posted by martman1 on 2017-09-17 06:47:09

Obama wanted single payer. We all want it. Sanders is not any revolutionary hero, fer crikey's sake.

Posted by pamelia on 2017-09-16 14:17:48

goal of fully socialized medical service, where all facets of health provision—hospitals, dentist visits, pharmaceuticals and, hell, even veterinary care—are detached from the whims of the market and distributed freely and equally in the public sphere==============================================================================It's doubtful that 'distributed freely' is accurate. It seems it would have to be financed by taxes but people and employers would be freed from premiums, copays, deductibles and all the rest so it's unknown how this would work. There must be a way since other countries, reportedly, provide health care at a lower cost.,

Posted by anyone2 on 2017-09-16 11:14:40

You claimed this headline is biased and I said it is truthful. The biggest example in politics...money. The democrats are losing money and they know it. Money and elections. If they want to continue to bring in money they need to meet the need of their electorates and they're not doing it.

Posted by Dot L on 2017-09-16 00:13:58

What is "failing due to funding?" What is "worthless?" And how? Please specify and feel free to point to any developed country where health care is NOT more cost effective than In the U.S. If you are talking about Medicare, it is far more cost effective than the corrupt insurance companies, rip-off pharmaceutical companies and other private, for profit providers in the USA.

Posted by Nahzuul on 2017-09-15 21:30:03

Its worthless if its failing due to funding

Posted by Eric Sin on 2017-09-15 21:02:49

HOW? Give me an example?

Posted by Eric Sin on 2017-09-15 21:02:16

Excellent piece, thanks for writing.

Posted by Dot L on 2017-09-15 14:26:59

It's the truth.

Posted by Dot L on 2017-09-15 14:25:24

The NYT on the cover of it's online paper had a huge picture of Angelina Jolie and on a small patch on the right the announcement of Sander's Medicare-for-all bill. Today reference to the bill and the immoral healthcare system has all but disappeared from the MSM and gets scant attention on progressive sites.

If Medicare-for-all which impacts millions of us received a tenth of the coverage of DACA or daily Trumpisms, maybe it would garner additional support. But the political elites like the fact that you are tethered to your job, if you have one, so that you and your love'd ones don't fall prey to the insurance/pharmaceutical industrial complex.

When the corporate media is so silent, I would only wish that progressive sites would quit following the led story that's handed to them and stay focused on an issue that is critical to so many....

Posted by Zagonostra on 2017-09-15 06:58:57

Only in America is health care for all considered a political issue. If being "liberal" means taking care of ourselves and our fellow citizens, sign me up. It is also more patriotic to care about your fellow American, than it is to wave around guns and the flag.